A Selection from the Poems of William MorrisBy: William Morris (1834-1896)

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Franz Hueffer who came into the Rossetti circle in the manner indicated in the following letter (of which the greater part is in the writing of the late Lucy Rossetti daughter of Ford Madox Brown) was a broad headed, plodding, able German who wrote and spoke English perfectly enough before his naturalization. He was somewhat heavy in his enthusiasms; and Gabriel Rossetti laughed at him a good deal. On one occasion D.G.R. let off the following "nursery rhyme":

There's a fluffy haired German called Huffer A loud and pragmatical duffer: To stand on a tower And shout "Schopenhauer" Is reckoned his mission by Huffer.

There was no malice in these rhymes of Rossetti's; but even his dear friend Morris ("Topsy" as his intimates called him on account of his shock of black hair) was not exempt from personal sallies of the kind, as this, when M. got alarmed about his increasing bulk:

There was a young person called Topsy Who fancied he suffered from dropsy; He shook like a jelly, Till the Doctor cried "Belly!" Which angered; but comforted Topsy.

Poor dear Morris! he had cause enough for alarm. Diabetes was only one among the agencies by which his stalwart frame was disintegrated at the age of 62.

H.B.F.

7 November 1897.]

[Illustration: (hand written letter) May 27th/89

5 ENDSLEIGH GARDENS.

N.W.

Dear Forman,

Please excuse a very laconic presentment of the facts. Francis Hueffer, Musical Critic of the "Times", author of the libretto of "Columba" of a volume on the "Troubadours" of "Half a century of Music in England" etc etc, died last Jan 7 aged 43 leaving a widow & three children, & little indeed.]

This Collection is published with copyright for Continental circulation, but all purchasers are earnestly requested not to introduce the volumes into England or into any British Colony.

COLLECTION OF BRITISH AUTHORS

TAUCHNITZ EDITION.

VOL. 2378.

POEMS BY WILLIAM MORRIS.

IN ONE VOLUME.

A SELECTION FROM THE POEMS OF WILLIAM MORRIS.

Edited with a Memoir by Francis Hueffer.

Copyright Edition.

Leipzig Bernhard Tauchnitz 1886. The Right of Translation is reserved.

MEMOIR

OF

WILLIAM MORRIS.

William Morris, poet, decorative designer and socialist, was born in 1834 at Clay Street, Walthamstow, now almost a suburb of London, at that time a country village in Essex. He went to school at Marlborough College and thence to Exeter College, Oxford, where he took his degree in 1857. During his stay in the University the subsequent mode of his life was prepared and foreshadowed in two important directions. Like most poets Morris was not what is called very assiduous "at his book"; the routine of college training was no more an attraction to him than the ordinary amusements and dissipations of undergraduate existence. But he was studious all the same, reading the classics in his own somewhat spasmodic way and exploring with even greater zeal the mysteries of mediæval lore. His fellow worker in these studies and his most intimate friend was and is at the present day Mr. Burne Jones, the famous painter, at that time a student of divinity. Artistic and literary pursuits thus went hand in hand, and received additional zest when the two young men became acquainted with Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Holman Hunt and other painters of the Pre Raphaelite school who came to Oxford to execute the frescoes still dimly visible on the ceiling of the Union Debating Hall. Of the aims and achievements of the Pre Raphaelite Brotherhood, and of the revival of mediæval feeling in art and literature originally advocated by its members ample account has been given in the memoir of Rossetti prefixed to his poems in the Tauchnitz edition... Continue reading book >>